One of the year’s most highly acclaimed animated features, DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot makes its Digital debut through Universal Pictures Home Entertainment today, available to rent or own. The film boasts an impressive 98% on both Rotten Tomatoes’ critics-determined Tomatometer and audience ranked Popcornmeter.
Marking the home entertainment launch, Animation Magazine is sharing an exclusive clip from a behind-the-scenes featurette, in which the filmmaking team discuss the film’s unique look.
In the video, writer-director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods) discusses the boons and challenges of CG animation, as an artist who came up when hand-drawn 2D was still the standard. “One of the things we lost [in the shift to CG] was some of the details and the warmth that you get in these hand-drawn characters,” he notes in the clip’s opening.
Head of look Baptiste Van Opstal later describes how the animation team worked in 2D layers of painterly touches in Photoshop to create the CG animation’s storybook quality. “All those little touches look the way they do because an artist did it,” production designer Raymond Zibach agrees.
An adaptation of Peter Brown’s award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot is an epic adventure following the journey of a robot, ROZZUM unit 7134 (“Roz” for short), that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.
The film features the voices of Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.
The Wild Robot opened in theaters on September 27, and has earned $107.6 million in worldwide box office so far. Following today’s digital launch, the film will arrive on physical media on December 3. Additional home release details available here.
